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Shu-tian Li; or Shu-t'ien Li; Chinese: 李书田 (1900 - 1988) was a citizen of the United States, a Chinese American educator and engineer. His brother, Shu-hua Li or Li Shu-hua (Chinese: 李书华) was a physicist and a former Secretary of Education in China, and contributed to the founding of UNESCO. Dr. Shu-tian Li was the maternal grandfather of Steven Chu, the Nobel Prize winner and the United States Secretary of Energy in the Obama Administration and Morgan Chu, a top intellectual property lawyer. After receiving a Ph.D. degree in engineering/economics from Cornell University in 1926, Dr. Shu-tian Li returned to China to assume a professorship at the Peiyang University. He became the executive officer of Northern China Hydraulic Commission in 1928. He was a founder of the Chinese Hydraulic Engineering Society and served as its deputy president and then president for six terms. Later he was appointed to lead the Yellow River Commission.

At the age of 28, Dr. Shu-tian Li was chosen as the president of Tangshan College of Engineering and became the youngest college administrator in China. In 1932, he was named the Dean of the Peiyang Engineering College. Under his leadership, Peiyang established one of the first graduate engineering programs and the first hydraulic engineering laboratory in China. Between 1937 and 1949, he led the establishment of several national colleges and universities in western and southwestern China (e.g. 西北联大, 国立西北工学院, 西康技艺专科学校, 贵阳农工学院, 贵州大学 and 北洋西京分院). During his leadership at the Si-kang Institute of Technology (西康技艺专科学校), the Panzhihua Mine, one of the largest iron (and rare metal) deposits in the world, was discovered. In recognition of his contribution to hydraulic engineering and to the Chinese nation against the Japanese during the WWII, Dr. Li was awarded a First Order Hydraulic Gold Medal and an Order of Victory of Resistance against Aggression, respectively, from the Chinese government. He was elected to the National Peking Academy of Sciences in 1948. He published several major papers and books on the improvement of the nation's water resource, Yellow River basin and northern China harbor. Among these publications, "The Chinese Hydraulic Issues" (《中国水利问题》), the first comprehensive review and scientific recommendation regarding Chinese water resources, established him as the leading authority on hydraulic engineering in China in the 1940s.

Dr. Shu-tian Li returned to the United States in 1950 to start private engineering practice and academic teaching/research. The Chinese Institute of Engineers (CIE) awarded Dr. Li the CIE Distinguished Service Award in 1963 for his work on the Unified Energy-Matrix Analysis. For his life-long contribution to concrete engineering, he received the highest award from the American Concrete Institute in 1985. Dr. Li also served on a US congressional advisory board. He was accredited with establishing the Phi Tau Phi Scholastic Honor Society of America. He published 17 books and more than 800 research papers in his life time.